


Family Business

by woodenwashbucket



Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, Mob AU, and other criminal activity, first fic I've posted I hope you enjoy!, many other characters mentioned in passing, technically there are only two characters here, the one speaking and the one listening, vague descriptions of violence and murder, who are not specified here in an attempt at an ending reveal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-24
Updated: 2019-09-24
Packaged: 2020-10-27 04:24:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,392
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20754305
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/woodenwashbucket/pseuds/woodenwashbucket
Summary: Mob bosses don't have rules against killing. That changes a few things.





	Family Business

**Author's Note:**

> This came about because while writing notes for another fic I accidentally wrote 'Family' instead of 'Batfamily' and my mind immediately went 'Mob AU.'  
If you want to know in advance who the speaker and listener are, please see the end note.

See, about forty years ago, the most powerful crime family between the coasts had a problem. The Waynes’ only kid had never been any good with getting his manicured hands dirty – he preferred the legitimate parts of the family business. Preferred violence done with numbers and signatures and loopholes in corporate regulations. The Prince of Gotham, and he wanted to be up in a tower instead of out walking his lands.

But the second most powerful crime family between the coasts had a problem too, a problem that shouldn’t have been a problem at all. Because see, the child of the Kanes who could deal in blood like it was water, who could smile down the barrel of a gun from either end, was the daughter. And every Kane and every gun who swore loyalty to them didn’t give the flaking gilt off a dead cop’s badge about it, but they knew that some people would. Some families wouldn’t fear like they should. They would think they understood, when they didn’t understand anything at all, and the Princess of the East Side didn’t want to deal in underestimation and surprise.

It was a marriage of convenience as much as one of love, a marriage of politics as much as one of passion. See, Thomas could handle both families’ legitimate business interests while Martha smiled cold and played the lawless side like a grand piano, and they used each others’ names and faces like it was a game they didn’t even need to cheat to win.

They’d have taken over, see? Fifteen, twenty years, and no one could ever have taken them down. The world would have been theirs, any piece of it they wanted.

Even nine years in, it was partly luck.

It was the butler – the bodyguard, the half-wild wolf from across the pond who’d ‘made a bit of a to-do’, as they say, who’d had to leave the island and had sunk into Gotham like a hot shell casing through soft snow – getting caught in traffic.

It was the crowd all pushing for a better view when a pretty lady slipped and fell on ice invisible under the dim and flickering streetlights – too many bumps and jostles to stay alert to them all.

It was the two squad cars parked across the street – unrelated, there for a disturbance in a greasy spoon diner a block down from the little art house movie theatre – drawing just enough attention from the Waynes’ protectors that the assassins sent on a suicide mission could get too close before anyone realized.

Of course, it was partly luck, too, that little Bruce survived.

Eight years old, weighed down by the bodies of the two people he loved best in the whole rotting world, understanding that power and respect don’t mean a damn if they can’t keep you and yours safe.

Understanding that they can still mean something after all, when that something is revenge.

He’s built it all up again, now. It all took a hit when his folks went down, the rest of the Family complacent after nine years basking under the light of a pair of beautiful ruthless smiles. But he’s got it all back, see, got it all back and then some. The Falcones, the Maronis, the Roman, Cobblepot, Thorne, the Russian – they’ve all either bowed down or gotten the hell out.

And Zucco. My good goddamn. What happened to that man.

See, the King of Gotham was just getting started rising when Tony Zucco tried to hit the circus up for protection money. Zucco was way down the priority list. Not involved in the conspiracy that left the King an orphan raised by a wolf. Not particularly big time. Didn’t hurt kids.

Well. Until he did.

See, Bruce has this altruistic streak. He’ll laugh if you tell him that, and then he’ll either tell you it’s easier to get rich in a nice city or he’ll have his Shadow take you out back. Depends on who you are. Depends on if he needs you.

Unless you’re one of us, of course.

So when he saw that boy, kneeling between cooling bodies, he did what only he could do – he walked right through all the people and laws and walls in his way and he told that boy: whoever did it was going to pay.

He let the kid do it, too. Gave him every option in the world and nodded pleased when the kid did it quick and clean.

Well. Quick and clean after everything that went before.

Gotta have some class, that’s what the King says. But not too much. Can’t forget what’s under your fingernails, even when there’s not enough of it to show.

Collected lots of kids over the years. There’s the first, the firstborn Wayne of his generation, even if not a drop of his blood goes back to Thomas, who smiles and smiles and is always quick and clean except for when he’s not. There’s the kid CEO who shows up on business magazine covers nowadays, who people say takes after his grandpa except his grandpa was from Hong Kong and he never met Thomas any more than the rest of us did. There’s the Shadow, and even I might not be safe if I tell you about the Shadow, but hey, everything you need to know you already do, am I right? And there’s the youngest, the blood son, who you can look at and see Thomas and Martha and Bruce, who turned his back on his mother and her empire for a chance to learn a different way to do business.

He’ll have more, too, right side of wedlock this time, if he can get that mistress of his to stop stealing diamond rings long enough for him to give her one.

And there’s the others, of course. There’s the firstborn’s wife, the one who smiles just like him except it’s not blood behind her teeth, it’s information, it’s everything about you that anyone could know, who sees the city and feels the city and holds it all like a spider in a web. There’s the CEO’s right hand woman, the bright blond who everyone looks away from after they sniff about her father’s failure as a criminal, as a man, and never realize that she took him out all on her own and that’s how she caught the CEO’s eye, the one who can play light to the Shadow’s dark and no one realizes they’re two sides of the same coin. There’s the Chairman of the Board’s kids, brother and sisters, who decided there was an opening for a trio who could play both sides of the law and come out squeaky clean. There’s the Last Bertinelli, who got her first audience with the King for how well she played the long game, hunted down and got her own revenge, not so quick and not so clean, on the family that took hers down. There’s the Countess, the King’s cousin, with her hair just the right shade of red that you can’t tell, in some light, how much blood she didn’t care enough to not wash out this time.

And of course, the wolf is still at the door.

Now, you’ve gotta be asking yourself at this point, why am I telling you this? Why would I, gutter trash, second son, buried and raised, explain to you all about my Family? My King?

Well, it’s like this, see.

You took me away from them.

And we’ve got legitimate enterprises and illegal undertakings that I could list off for days and not be done.

But there’s really only one Wayne family business, and that’s keeping our own safe, and getting revenge if we can’t.

You took me away from them, and I’m not going to do a damn thing about it.

Because the King of Gotham is going to be here in a minute.

He’s going to be slow.

He’s going to be messy.

He says it’s been a while since he got any under his own fingernails.

He’s Martha’s son just as much as he’s Thomas’, and if you thought what he did to the sorry souls who ordered the hit on his parents was legendary, you will be just blown away by what he’s got planned for the joker who killed his son.

**Author's Note:**

> One of the first things that occurred to me when I thought of a Mob AU was "if Bruce doesn't have a code against killing, there is no way the Joker survives after he kills Jason."  
Ah, but what if Bruce didn't know it was the Joker until Jason came back and could tell him?  
And what if Jason found the Joker first?  
Jason might feel that some context was in order for the clown to understand just what was about to happen to him.


End file.
